Excerpts from Jeff Sessions interview on Sotomayor hearings

In this June 24, 2009 file photo, the Senate Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala, left, looks back toward fellow committee member Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah as he answers a question during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Republicans are floundering in their efforts to trip up Sotomayor, unable to find an effective message about why she's not fit to be a justice with just one week to go before hearings on her confirmation.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee where confirmation hearings begin Monday on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama.

Following are some excerpts from a Friday interview with Sessions on Capitol Hill that didn't make it into the print story in Saturday's Birmingham News.

MAKING ALABAMA PROUD
"I hope the people of Alabama feel like I conducted myself in way they can be proud of, a fair way, but in a way that didn't shy away from defending the great legal principles that made America the freest and most prosperous country in the world. It's difficult to do. This is for the United States Supreme Court and the nominee is not entitled to a free ride. She has said some things that are breathtaking and if they represent her true beliefs they need to be inquired into."

CALLING BALLS AND STRIKESSessions frequently invokes the words of now-Chief Justice John Roberts, who told senators during his confirmation hearing that justices should be neutral umpires who call balls and strikes: "I expect she will say she agrees with that. But that's not the final answer because a lot of the academics and activists who promote this judicial philosophy of activism claim they're following the law, but in reality what they do is bend it to make it say what they want it to say to reach a certain outcome. She needs to be given a fair chance to respond to that."

"There is a natural tendency to support the nominee of your party or a natural tendency to question the nominee of the other party but the things that will be decisive for most senators are the serious questions about this nominee's objectivity and commitment to the law. I think this nominee's problems are not political, her problems are some of her rulings and speeches."

"I think most Republicans would have been pleased to support a nominee they think is a mainstream Democrat nominee."

"What I want to emphasize is that I don't believe in the philosophy that most judges around the world seem to believe or adhere to which is that judges are able to set policy and make decisions based on what they think the best result should be. The American legal system is unique in giving judges lifetime appointments but it requires them not to be policy makers. It's a different approach. The fact that this nominee seems enamored with foreign law would indicate that she may be of the view that we need to do more of that kind of judging, and that will be part of the analysis here too."

HIS OWN FAILED NOMINATION
On critics who are bringing up Sessions' own failed judicial nomination from 1986, where his racial sensitivity was questioned: "We're living in today. We've got to live in today's world. We have made great progress in breaking down racial barriers and I'm very pleased about that. It is very healthy that an African-American was elected president and a Hispanic woman was nominated for Supreme Court, I think that's fabulous."

"I think any senator is rightly subject to severe criticism if they don't understand that discrimination occurred in this country and there is a need for us to move toward equality, and if they don't understand that discrimination still exists in certain areas. But they also need to understand that great progress has been made."

VULNERABLE BUT FOCUSED
On whether he's worried that the hearings could draw the type of Saturday Night Live parody of the Clarence Thomas hearings with the unflattering imitation of then-Sen. Howell Heflin of Alabama: (Sessions laughing) "You are utterly vulnerable to those kind of things. Therefore the best thing to do is try to do it right and see what happens."